Potential problems if you have Outlook 2016 or 2013 and an earlier version of Outlook installed on the same computer

Symptoms

With the Click-to-Run installation type of Microsoft Office 2016 and Office 2013 you can run two different versions of Microsoft Outlook on the same computer. Consider the following possible scenarios:

You have Office 2016 Click-to-Run installed side-by-side with a MSI-based installation of Office 2013, Office 2010 or Office 2007.

You have Office 2013 Click-to-Run installed side-by-side with a MSI-based installation of Office 2016, Office 2010 or Office 2007.

In these scenarios, you may experience the following problems when you use the earlier version of Outlook.

Instant search is disabled in the earlier version of Outlook

If you are using the earlier version of Outlook in this coexistence configuration, you can still successfully search for items in your mailbox. However, these earlier versions of Outlook will not use Windows Desktop Search (Instant Search) functionality. In this configuration, Instant Search continues to function in the later version of Outlook.

You cannot send files from other programs if an earlier version of Outlook is runningIf you try to send a file from another program in this situation, you may receive one of the following error messages:

The client operation failed.

This action is not supported while an older version of Outlook is running.

For example, this problem can occur if you right-click a file on your desktop, click Send To, and then click Mail Recipient while the earlier version of Outlook is running. To resolve this problem, make sure that the later version of Outlook is running when you send a file from another application.

Interoperability issues when using mixed Office program versions

You may encounter different issues if you use different versions of Word and Outlook for mail merge or other functionality that occurs across programs. For example, if you run Outlook 2016 and Word 2013, or if you run Outlook 2013 and Word 2010. If you must use shared features across different Office programs, make sure that you use the same version for each program. For example, if you start a mail merge in Word 2016, make sure Outlook 2016 is running.

Note You cannot have two different versions of Outlook installed on the same computer if you are using .msi files to install the different Office versions.

Resolution

As a best practice, you should only have one version of Office installed on a computer. For migration scenarios, we realize there might be a need to have multiple versions of Office on the same computer for a short period of time. We recommend that you uninstall the earlier version of Office as soon as possible after you’ve migrated to the latest version of Office.

Uninstall your earlier Office version by using the Programs and Features control panel by following these steps.

Open Control Panel.

Under Programs, select Uninstall a program.

In the Programs and Features window, select your earlier version of Office and then click Uninstall.

Follow the instructions that are provided in the Office Setup interface to remove Office.

More information

When you install the Click-to-Run version of Office 2016 or Office 2013, the default installation method keeps any currently installed versions of Office on your computer. It does this to provide quicker access to Office programs as they perform their initial download and installation on first start. After you are fully migrated to Office 2016 or Office 2013, we recommend that you only keep that version of Office installed on your computer. This gives you the best user experience in Office 2016 or Office 2013.